Why 4.6?

I rekon a SOHC 3v 5.4 V8 probably isn't that far off. Boss or next Mach maybe.

The Vette is a very good comparison. The LS1 is not really any more fuel efficent, but a Corvette weighs a lot less and had a lower CO drag. So these will make a big difference in MPG terms.

Also having a very tall 6th gear helps. But its purly an over drive gear not performance.

Remember if you drive a Evo or Sti hard they will be offering 15-19mpg wise from a much smaller engine.

svtash said:

How many of us would like to see a larger V-8 in our stangs? Not to base on the 4.6 but I would like a larger v8. If they can make a vette with a bigger v8 get the same or maybe even better mpg with more power why cant they do it in a stang? I know the vette is lighter but how much of a diff does the xtra weight of a car affect mpg. Maybe im alone here but i dont think so. If we as mustang enthusiests have to compare ourselve to cars that have more disp. (not always but generally) we will come up a bit short. Is there a reason besides cash that is keeping them from doing this? Dont get me wrong cause i love the stang I would just like to see more n/a power from our cars personally. So in short my question is why dont they?

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Have you ever popped the hood to take a look at your engine?

The 4.6L SOHC engine has approximately the same dimensions as a Ford 460 cu. in. pushrod big block, and if the materials were the same, it'd probably weigh the same as well.

Overhead cam engines tend to create more power per unit of displacement as opposed to pushrod engines. The trade-off is that they will be larger and heavier per unit of displacement as well.

Weight makes a big difference in miles per gallon. Take a 200 mile road trip in an empty car, and then load up three passengers plus their baggage and see what kind of mileage you get on the return trip compared to the first trip.

300bhp/ton said:

The Vette is a very good comparison. The LS1 is not really any more fuel efficent, but a Corvette weighs a lot less and had a lower CO drag.

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Still, the LS1 powered Cambirds get remarkable mileage for having such a big engine, and they weigh in about the same as a Stang. And they tend to get better mileage than the Stang as well.

They have the skip shift crap and a TALL 6th gear

The motor decision has to do simply with production across the line of products.

It is a MODULAR motor because many of it's parts and or dimensions transfer across a wide varity of motors. Like between a V6, a V8 and a V10.

It's about saving money and stream lining production and that is all it will ever be about.

Being able to use the same connecting rods in several different motors can save Ford Millions on just that one part.

The 4.6 in the Jag is over 400HP, no problem with too few cubes there.

It is a balancing act between power, reliabilty and cost. ...and in the end, it's the bean counters who make the decisions.

Sure Chevy has pushrods with big power, they are also giving their cars away because no one wants them. And they are losing millions. I drove by the Cobalt final assembly plant today and there was about 10 employee cars in the lot.

GM Lost more in dollars than Ford Profitted this year. Ford actually is doing OK not great but OK.

Oh, one more thing. The Corvette costs $50,000 and the Zo6 will be close to $80,000. Would you pay that for a mustang with a bigger motor when the 5.4 Cobra will only be $40,000????

Every Chevy with a Big power, Big motor costs BIG money.

GTO 30K +
SSR 40K
Corvette 50K
ZO6 80K

Now their new performance cars are a different story,

Supercharged V6's and small V8's. Hmmmmmmmmmmm??? Maybe Ford did something right and is years ahead.

jfischer said:

Still, the LS1 powered Cambirds get remarkable mileage for having such a big engine, and they weigh in about the same as a Stang. And they tend to get better mileage than the Stang as well.

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What is the mileage on the 05 Cambirds???

Not being a d*ck, but the Cambird formula did not work. They didn't sell so it doesn't matter. Success is measured by sales and profit only. You can have the fastest, highest mileage car in the world but if you can't make a profit, it won't be around anymore.

sawman70 said:

What is the mileage on the 05 Cambirds???

Not being a d*ck, but the Cambird formula did not work. They didn't sell so it doesn't matter. Success is measured by sales and profit only. You can have the fastest, highest mileage car in the world but if you can't make a profit, it won't be around anymore.

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EPA rating...
City: 19
Hwy: 28
I believe the A4 was slightly less, like 18 city and 25-26 hwy.

I agree, part of the "formula" didn't work...they simply didn't sell enough to warrant their own plant. If the F platform was shared by other cars or if the Camaro/Firebird were built on a different platform (shared by other cars)...selling 75k units a year would've be fine. It just looks real bad when the Ste. Therese plant was capable of producing around 200k units a year.

However, GM was still making a profit on the F-bodies. If you care, these are probably the top 10 reasons why the F-body died (or went into a coma):


10. The Ford Mustang. It's sales exploded after it's 1999 redesign, yet the overall market collapsed to the point Mustang ended up with about half the market (this includes all the imports as well as the F-bod).

9. The sudden drop in sales in the sport coupe market around 98 (the f-bodies remained the 2nd best selling sport coupes in the US...just shows you how bad things were).

8. SUVs & the profit machines they became. GM stopped spending money on cars & diverted it to trucks.

7. No advertizing.

6. The F-body had a serious shortage of friends in high places.

5. The only way of pulling out of a highly restrictive contract at Ste. Therese, was if f-body sales dropped. Best way to start that happening? Stop advertizing it.

4. The idea of using the Monaro as the basis for a new Camaro was vetoed, as was basing Camaro on a FWD chassis.

3. Safety standards that would have mandated major changes in the roofline which would have required alot of money, which GM didn't want to invest in a chassis developed 20 years prior.

2. No replacement chassis available to base a new one on.

1. No redesign for 10 years!


I didn't write that but I completely agree with it.

And your previous post...

GM is doing about as well as either of the big 2.5 could hope to be doing right now. If you're referring to the "GM employee discount for everyone," Ford and DCX are both doing their own employee discount for everyone now to compete with GM's (since the month of June proved it to be very successful for GM).

And MSRP on a base C6 is $44k...C6 Z06 is $66k.

sawman70 said:

The 4.6 in the Jag is over 400HP, no problem with too few cubes there.

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Just an FYI

The Jaguar engine is a 4.2 Quad cam 4 valve per cylinder variable timing control all aluminium engine.

This is a Jagaur own engine and was development indipendantly from Ford. There is now a simpler version of the engine being used in the Lincoln.

In n/a form it makes 295bhp (I think this is DIN, so an SAE Net value would be approx 299bhp) and plenty of toque. The supercharged variant uses a Roots blower and makes about 400bhp. More power than an 03/4 Cobra and still with less displacment.

Other engines sizes have included 3.2/3.5/4.0

An also a new 4.4 as fitted to the new Discovery/Range Rover Sport.

This is an ultimate engine, it only has 2 issues.

1. The original engines used a coating in the cylinders. But due to poor grade fuel (which is no longer about) it damaged this coating resulting in engine failures. Jaguar then started using steel liners instead. So this is no onger an issue.

2. Due to the quad cam arrangment it puts the vlave train under a lot of stress, and the drive mechanism although well designed has been known to cause some issues. However this is still fairly rare and does not happen on all engines.

In n/a form a 4.5 liter variant for the Trans Am race series produces 650bhp. This exceeeds what the Ford 5.0 Cammer produces and is still 500cc down on displacement.

It is claimed (by a Jaguar/supercharger specialist in Britain) that by changing the Roots for a twin screw blower the 4.2 would see about 70-100bhp gain without any other modifications. So add a full exhaust, CAI and tune on there. And you would have a perfectly streetable and reliable 500-570bhp and still running the STOCK boost.

If someone has the money, a Jaguar V8 swap into a Mustang would be totally awesome in every area.

300bhp/ton said:

Just an FYI

The Jaguar engine is a 4.2 Quad cam 4 valve per cylinder variable timing control all aluminium engine.

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Excellent! Even smaller than I thought!

As far as GM, I have nothing against them, I own 2 currently. But they are not doing well. They are seriously in the red due to poor sales and 4 retirees for every 1 current employee. They have taken a loss every quarter this year and that is why they went to the employee discount. And ford has posted a consistant profit (albeit lower than they wanted). Period, end of discussion, look it up and research, watch the news etc. GM is hurting, Ford isn't. (For now, everything in our lives is temporary)

I have pleanty of GM employees and retirees in my wifes family and love to talk cars and business with them.

Choose any reason you want, the Cambirds had the big motor, they were faster and handled better but the formula didn't work and they are gone. If big motor automatically = better car, they'd still be around.

And correct my memories above, but the $'s I was off still leaves the big motor cars significantly more change than the mustang.

300bhp/ton said:

It is claimed (by a Jaguar/supercharger specialist in Britain) that by changing the Roots for a twin screw blower the 4.2 would see about 70-100bhp gain without any other modifications. So add a full exhaust, CAI and tune on there. And you would have a perfectly streetable and reliable 500-570bhp and still running the STOCK boost.
.

Click to expand...

This is true, twin screws / whipples operate with less parasitic drag on the motor and produce much lower boost temperatures. So, same boost = more power. That is why I am considering one for my Cobra.

I already have a very streetable reliable 535hp and 568tq but would like 600!!!! And safe at that!!!

300bhp/ton said:

It is claimed (by a Jaguar/supercharger specialist in Britain) that by changing the Roots for a twin screw blower the 4.2 would see about 70-100bhp gain without any other modifications. So add a full exhaust, CAI and tune on there. And you would have a perfectly streetable and reliable 500-570bhp and still running the STOCK boost.
.

Click to expand...

This is true, twin screws / whipples operate with less parasitic drag on the motor and produce much lower boost temperatures. So, same boost = more power. That is why I am considering one for my Cobra.

I already have a very streetable reliable 535hp and 568tq but would like 600!!!! And safe at that!!!

02LS1 said:

10. The Ford Mustang. It's sales exploded after it's 1999 redesign, yet the overall market collapsed to the point Mustang ended up with about half the market (this includes all the imports as well as the F-bod).

9. The sudden drop in sales in the sport coupe market around 98 (the f-bodies remained the 2nd best selling sport coupes in the US...just shows you how bad things were).

8. SUVs & the profit machines they became. GM stopped spending money on cars & diverted it to trucks.

7. No advertizing.

6. The F-body had a serious shortage of friends in high places.

5. The only way of pulling out of a highly restrictive contract at Ste. Therese, was if f-body sales dropped. Best way to start that happening? Stop advertizing it.

4. The idea of using the Monaro as the basis for a new Camaro was vetoed, as was basing Camaro on a FWD chassis.

3. Safety standards that would have mandated major changes in the roofline which would have required alot of money, which GM didn't want to invest in a chassis developed 20 years prior.

2. No replacement chassis available to base a new one on.

1. No redesign for 10 years!

Click to expand...

You can have all the reasons, and they seem pretty sound to me, but as mentioned only one thing matters:

Did it make a fitting profit by people buying it???

sawman70 said:

What is the mileage on the 05 Cambirds???

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My only point was that someone else said the LS1 wasn't very efficient, but compared to the 4.6 Ford V8 it's an efficient motor. Gets better mileage than the Ford 4.6 does, and makes more power.

True, you can't buy one today, but that doesn't change the fact that the LS1 in the Cambird is an impressive motor.

sawman70 said:

Oh, one more thing. The Corvette costs $50,000

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No, it starts at $45,000. You can certainly spend $50K or more on one fully loaded, but you don't have to.

Very true, you can get the base model for $44,510. But if I'm going to spend that kind of money, I would personally add the following which does not come with the base model:

(MSRP $48,870)

Cargo convenience net

Luggage shade

Seat adjuster, power, front passenger six-way

Seats, front Sport bucket with perforated leather seating surfaces, includes back angle adjustment, adjustable lumbar and side bolsters

AM/FM stereo with six-disc, in-dash CD changer, MP3 playback and Bose premium seven-speaker system

Head-Up Display, includes dot-matrix readouts for street mode, track mode with g-meter, vehicle speed, engine rpm, and readings from key gauges, including coolant temperature and oil pressure

HomeLink transmitter (garage door opener, 3-channel programmable)

Memory Package with memory presets for two drivers including driver seat and telescoping steering wheel with easy-exit feature, and outside rearview mirrors

Mirror, inside rearview, includes auto-dimming feature, compass and dual reading lights

Power telescoping steering column including manual tilt-wheel

Seats, heated, driver and passenger

Mossberg said:

They have the skip shift crap and a TALL 6th gear

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They also do NOT meet 2005 new car emissions requirements.

svtash said:

The vette doesnt? I havent heard anything bout that yet.

What doe the current GTO get for mileage? Or is that waht u guys are calling the cambird?

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I haven't heard that the LS1 is emission challenged either, but the 2005 Vette has the LS2 engine anyway

The GTO is rated 16/21 for the A4, and 17/25 for the M6. Keeping in mind that it too has the LS2, a 6.0 liter, 400HP motor in a heavier car than the Stang.

Cambird refers to the now-retired Camaro/Firebird twins

jfischer said:

My only point was that someone else said the LS1 wasn't very efficient, but compared to the 4.6 Ford V8 it's an efficient motor. Gets better mileage than the Ford 4.6 does, and makes more power.

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that is a very inaccurate statement.

the ls1 is 5.7 liters with 345bhp so

345/5.7 = 60.5bhp per liter

The current 4.6 has 300bhp so

300/4.6 = 65.2bhp per liter

So infact the current 3v 4.6 mod engine is mnore efficent in specific outputs terms. An you can huff and puff all you like but these are FACTS.

In terms of mileage it is the gearing that makes the biggest difference as it is the 6 speed manuals that will clock the highest mpg figures and stock the auto's tend to run silly 2.73 gearing. So the final drive is very similar.


In all honesty the LS1 is in my opinion a better engine than the current modular line up, but that will not alter the facts.